Bargnani has peaked at 26. He has only 5 years over superstar Pau who was putting all-star numbers and pulling his memphis team when he was younger than bargs. I might have given the 'age factor' more thought if he had 10 years over Pau.

First we were comparing him to Dirk and TimD . now to Pau? how about Garnett and Jsmoove while we are at it? These are elite players. Pau as a 36year old veteran will still be a better player than bargs in my eyes.

Bargnani has peaked at 26. He has only 5 years over superstar Pau who was putting all-star numbers and pulling his memphis team when he was younger than bargs. I might have given the 'age factor' more thought if he had 10 years over Pau.

First we were comparing him to Dirk and TimD . now to Pau? how about Garnett and Jsmoove while we are at it? These are elite players. Pau as a 36year old veteran will still be a better player than bargs in my eyes.

Statistics show that Gasol is obviously better in almost all facets except ppg (argument can be made that he is the 3rd option, but pau has never averaged more than 20.8 in a season, compared to AB's 21.4 - slight advantage, nothing too significant) and ft%.

I am not implying that Bargnani is similar to Pau in terms of talent, because he is not. I'm simply putting other factors such as age and salary into play.

Pau is a great talent. However, he is not a #1 option as well. So that $18M pricetag is steep for someone who isn't the #1 option.

“I don’t create controversies. They’re there long before I open my mouth. I just bring them to your attention.”

Bargnani has peaked at 26. He has only 5 years over superstar Pau who was putting all-star numbers and pulling his memphis team when he was younger than bargs. I might have given the 'age factor' more thought if he had 10 years over Pau.

First we were comparing him to Dirk and TimD . now to Pau? how about Garnett and Jsmoove while we are at it? These are elite players. Pau as a 36year old veteran will still be a better player than bargs in my eyes.

What proof do you have that he's peaked? Most guys in this era peak at around 28-32 in my opinion.

Well draftedraptor must have factors that proved in his mind that Bargnani has peaked. I mean I'm sure he doesn't feel the way he feels because he doesn't like Bargnani's most recent spaghetti commercial or he doesn't like his hair...

Well draftedraptor must have factors that proved in his mind that Bargnani has peaked. I mean I'm sure he doesn't feel the way he feels because he doesn't like Bargnani's most recent spaghetti commercial or he doesn't like his hair...

Well draftedraptor must have factors that proved in his mind that Bargnani has peaked. I mean I'm sure he doesn't feel the way he feels because he doesn't like Bargnani's most recent spaghetti commercial or he doesn't like his hair...

Can I play? His TS% this season was below his career average. It's declined in each of the past 3 seasons. His EFG% was almost 3% below career average. It's been declining for 3 years. His TRB was .2% higher than his career average. It declined from 3-4 seasons ago. His BLK% was 1% below his career average. PPG, TRBS, AST, STL were all about his career average. Year over year, the numbers are virtually indistinguishable. The only number I see much of a difference in is AST% and DRTG, the latter of which matches his rookie numbers.

Slaw, you're the only one I've encountered try to suggest that this wasn't Bargnani's best season in the limited time he played. His defense improved a lot. His scoring is down but he was dinged up and was slow to get back into things before being shut down for good. Had he stayed healthy this probably would have been a great campaign that would have landed the Raptors in the back end of the lotto.

Slaw, you're the only one I've encountered try to suggest that this wasn't Bargnani's best season in the limited time he played. His defense improved a lot. His scoring is down but he was dinged up and was slow to get back into things before being shut down for good.

I would also argue that the true number of 'solid' games he had this year was closer to 20 games of the 31 with the remaining bad games coming on the return from the injury.

I no longer question what he can do and his value with Casey. I question his health. Is he able to remain healthy to endure the rigors of an 82 game season and (hopefully) deep playoff run?

For the most part I believe Bargs always had the basketball talent (except having a nose for the rebound possibly). Conditioning maybe another factor). I think external factors (like coaches, out of position role, trying to accomodate Bosh's play close to the rim, being made to be the perimeter option) played a large role in him not using or properly using all those talents until we got a glimpse this year. Ha, am I making too many excuses? Honestly though to me he is still an enigma to quote BC. Got to see him for a full/major part of a year with Casey and a better talented squad.

The 2012 Pau vs Bargnani comparision is difficult. Pau is now a player to take a team over the top not for a team like the Raps still trying to build...so I opt for Bargs. Paradoxically, last year I probably would have switched!

'Situational' Bargnani criticism

Some of the criticism Bargnani gets is really devoid of any sane objective analysis, as has been the case for a long time, and as I have about an hour to spare ...

Before this year (and even this year, mainly at the beginning) the main point of the people in the ant-Bargnani camp was something like: "i'm not complaining about his offense it is his defense which I find to be that bad, that he's hurting the team." (Of course this was accompanied by criticism of his rebounding). But when you looked at the situational stats which could and can by found on synergy, Bargnani didn't too bad. Sebastian Pruiti wrote a piece about this, saying that Bargnani wasn't that bad on individual defense. The counter by the ant-Bargnani camp was that his stats were made to look good because Bargnani always defended the weaker player. My research this summer proved that statement to be not supported by facts. I didn't do that research with the intent to prove that statement wrong as I was really wondering myself. I for one, have critised his offense on here and elswhere (which means to friends of mine willing to talk about it) because I always thought (and think) that with his skillset he should be able to be more efficient than he has been (even if he has a supporting cast unable to adequately spread the floor).

But now, something different is happening. Nowadays apparently at least part of the focus has switched to the offense of Bargnani as a main point of criticism. To me it's pretty evident why this is, it's because it's getting harder to attack his defense. Now some people are saying that Bargnani has plateaued and this statement is supporting by primarily looking at his offensive stats.

Now, I ask you, why not look at the defensive stats as well? Why not look to his overall impact on the team? If he improved those, what does that mean for the idea that he plateaued?

As you probably remember, somewhere in january there was the news that Bargnani was at the top of defenders in the league when looking at the situational defensive stats of synergy. That was after about 10/11 games. One clear point of criticism was that the sample size was small, which I agree with. But now, after the season, the sample size of course has increased. This does not mean that these are sacred stats, but they cannot be ignored as well (if you want to be somewhat objective) and they do tell a story.

Another interesting way to look at Bargnani's influence on the team overall is to look at the Offensive (OffRtg) and Defensive rating (DefRtg) with Bargnani on and off the floor (all stats from nba.com).

I'd say 'Ooops'... One could argue that he was a starter on a bad team and was going up against the best players, but in reality it probably was more than this alone. His missfit as a defensive anker on a bad defensive team was pretty clear if you compare his stats to those of Calderon. With Calderon off court the Netrating dropped from -5,3 to -8,4. With Calderon off court the Offensive rating dropped 3 points, while the defensive rating didn't improve (even dropped a bit).

But now, lets look at this year's ratings of Bargnani:

On court:
OffRtg 102,3
DefRtg 103,3
NetRtg -1,0

Off court:
OffRtg 96,7
DefRtg 100,6
NetRtg -4,0

That's looking much better, his relative impact is very cleary a positive one when you look at this stat. And it's saying to me, that there is no reason to assume that Bargnani is at his peak, is only getting worse, or anything like it. There are clear signs, beyond the eye-test, that Bargnani's overall impact on the team has significantly improved this year (even though there was inconsistency and regressing after his injury those are translated in the stats). My personal opinion on this is that there was already an improvement in individual defense last year and it has continued this year. His teamdefense did improve a bit this year but is not where we'd like it to be but I would be very interested to see him next to a (team)defensively capable (and agile) center.

Let's try to be a little bit objective, and look at Bargnani's overall game instead of singling out those things that support our argument, especially when we don't back it up (but those who don't, well, they don't and probably won't).